Broken But Not Shattered

By Lisa McDonald

        In preparing my income tax return this year, without I checked the box "Married Filing Jointly." I paused for a moment. The word married seemed to jump off the page and laugh at me since I was in the process of becoming a ‘‘single-again." One question that popped into my mind was, "How will I be able to serve God… now that I'll be… divorced?" What I was really asking myself was how could God use me, a broken person, in a role of service for Him?

        The tax forms forgotten, I started thinking about all the things I had been doing for the Lord: teaching a Sunday School class; teaching a Precept Upon Precept class; planning women's conference for the church and speaking to women's groups; and, after I had dried my tears and tried to be quiet, God started to show me some things.

    Why was I using the word "I" when I was talking about the service God had enabled me to do in the first place? Since He had placed me in these positions of service, why did I think that just because of a change in my marital status that I couldn’t continue to serve Him? He led me to read Jeremiah 18:4 which says:

"But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him." NIV

        God showed me in this verse that the vessel the potter was shaping, the one that was in His hands all the time, became marred or spoiled. Through no fault of the potter, the clay, for some reason, became unyielding to the Master’s hands. But he never left it alone. The potter did not put it in the scrap pile and say it was forever unusable. He reshaped it as he thought best. The clay did not jump up to the potter what type of wished to be. That would be absurd. But I was doing the same thing to God. I was asking Him how He was going to reshape my broken pot, which in itself was not all wrong. But in my arrogance I was also questioning His ability to do it.

Humbly I bowed before Him, the Master Craftsman, and offered up this prayer: 

"Father God, please forgive me being skeptical of your plans for my life. I have been doubting the fact that You could still use me in my broken state, and even whether You could put all the pieces of my life back together again. Please, Father, open my eyes and my heart to those in need and show me where you are leading me to serve. Keep my eyes off of myself and focused upon your face."

        Going back to my taxes, I looked at the "Married Filing Jointly" box again and smiled. The word married may eventually become invalid, but I am and forever will be joined to the Heavenly Father who is blinded to my imperfections. "... we are the children of God ... and joint heirs with Christ ..." Romans 8:16-17 KJV.